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2010 Fresh Summit

PMA is your source for valuable information and education that helps you identify and address business opportunities and challenges, and helps you increase profitability.  As part of PMA’s continuous effort to develop and deliver more value to more members, below you will find the speaker presentations and handouts from selected 2010 Fresh Summit workshops.  The workshops are listed alphabetically by topic area.  We thank our industry experts for their willingness to have us share their knowledge with you.

General Sessions

A.G. Lafley is Procter & Gamble's former chairman of the Board and CEO.  He led a turnaround at P&G after taking over in 2000 in the wake of a big share drop and a “crisis of confidence,” as he put it. Since then, the company has more than doubled sales, and has grown its portfolio of billion-dollar brands from 10 to 23.  Under Lafley’s leadership, P&G focused on consumer-driven innovation and consistent, reliable, sustainable growth.  He shared his ideas for success and innovation with Fresh Summit audiences on Friday, October 15th, 2010.

Workshops

Track: Business Tools

Small Business, Big Thinking: Effectively Managing Your Finances in Any Economic Climate:  From meeting costly government requirements to facing economic downturns, managing a business of less than 100 people presents its own set of unique financila challenges. This helpful session for small business owners was designed to provide insight and expert advice on sound financial practices and the best methods of incorporating these practices into small business environments. This presentation provides techniques specifically created for Small Business Owners on how to incorporate better financial insight into both strategic and tactical planning. The corresponding handout provides a snap shot glance of the material covered during this session.

Track:  Food Safety

Keeping it Local: The Pros and Cons of Local Sourcing: Whether you’re a grower, retailer, or wholesaler, everyone’s talking about local sourcing - but is it really the next big thing for you? From savings to safety, there are numerous benefits - and risks - associated with local sourcing. Join us for a panel discussion that will take a frank look at the good and the bad of local sourcing, including finding local partners, identifying potential savings, meeting quality and safety standards, and determining if a local sourcing strategy is the smartest move for your business.

Research to Real-World: The Best of Food Safety Innovations: There’s no shortage of research being done on food safety. However, the critical research has connections to the real world. Some of the most promising research is being done by the Center for Produce Safety (CPS) whose mission is to pursue that real world connection. You won’t want to miss this session that will explain the progress of the CPS’s food safety research and its real-world implications.

Handout: Layman Terms Description of Research Projects presented

The Truth About Pesticides:  Confidence in the safety of fresh produce has been adversely affected by some groups whose information is based on incomplete data about pesticide residues. The Alliance for Food and Farming has stepped forward to provide a scientific analysis of the actual risk and potential impact on health caused by the most commonly used pesticides.  This presentation featured A.F.F. leaders and industry experts who reviewed the credible and balanced results of the study to help individuals understand the real impact pesticides have on fresh produce. 

Track:  Global

Market Watch: The Impact of China: With over 1.3 billion people, the full market potential of China has yet to be realized. Join us for a thorough investigation of both opportunities and challenges of the growing Chinese marketplace - from China’s economy, consumer attitudes and behavior to infrastructure, food safety, and domestic produce competition. Don’t miss this chance to learn how to gain a foothold and grow your business in the world’s largest country.

Handout: Top 5 List for importing/exporting to and from China

Watching the World: A Global Economic Forecast: Whether on the upswing or entering a downturn, the health of the global economy has an enormous impact on the produce industry, with many indicators that can directly influence your business. But what should you be paying attention to? This session provides a review of historic and current global trends, a detailed forecast for the future of the global economy, and what that forecast will mean for the business decisions you’ll make in the next year and beyond.

Track:  Leadership

Cream of the Crop: Recruiting and Retaining Top Talent: Being able to identify, attract, motivate, and retain the very best talent is essential to the success of your business. In this handout for his popular Fresh Summit education session, speaker, author and advisor Garrison Wynn explains the most effective strategies for recruiting and retaining top talent, and how to motivate your teams to do whatever is needed to achieve your business goals of increasing sales and profits.

Making Smarter Choices with Strategic Decision Making: Even in the best of circumstances, making leadership decisions that achieve your goals while satisfying all stakeholders is difficult at best. This handout from the Fresh Summit education session will guide you through the best practices of strategic decision making as it helps you frame complex issues and balance short and long-term goals to make winning decisions for your business.

Track:  Packaging

Labeling for Success:  Today's innovative labeling techniques can play a major role in the success of virtually any produce items. The right label not only provides information, it makes your product stand out from the competition, catches the consumer's eye, inspiress impulse purchases and creates a connection between you and your customer. This presentation was designed to explore how various companies are incorporating unique labeling concepts into their processes.

Track:  Traceability

From the “How” to the “Why”: A New Look at Traceability: For years, the produce industry has worked together to find the best ways to implement supply chain traceability - but there has not been much focus on the “why.” This informative session aims to answer the “why”: why is traceability so important and why are the benefits significant? 

Webinars

• "Tapping into Supply Chain Technologies: What You Need to Know About Implementing Floral GTIN" – February 19, 2009 - Free Webinar

Presentations - Insights from the Experts 

• Any successful business depends highly on the key players involved in the venture.  Understanding how to connect those players and engage them in the process is the first step in the execution process. In his presentation, “Building Supply Relationships: It’s Time for the Truth”, Randy Wedel explores the world of sales models by providing you with a step-by-step process that details the primary components of relationship-building as well as the challenges involved in each.

• Successfully exporting produce to the United States depends highly on the demands set by the American consumer. Proper implementation of strategies and tactics to meet those demands will foster a more effective working relationship within the supply chain. In Randy Wedel’s presentation, “What North American Buyers Want,” he provides insight on these strategies and how they can help increase your competitiveness and profitability when exporting to the United States. 
• All leadership starts from within. Being a leader is about how you drive yourself. By applying the methods and exercises of traditional strategic planning to your personal life, New York Times bestselling author of The Dream Manager and President of Floyd Consulting Matthew Kelly will help you develop a personal strategic plan, fast-track your personal goals and become "the-best-version-of-yourself." Armed with the tools to create a personal strategic plan, you can teach your team members to adopt their own personal strategies and understand how that translates into successful corporate planning.  Learn more about developing a Personal Strategic Plan by Matthew Kelly.
• Who leads the charge for change? Change expert Seth Kahan presents a new view of communication that says change does not flow top-down or bottom-up, but inside-out. Seth realigns the direction of innovation, presenting a new, inclusive model that moves from telling people what to do to a collaborative construction of shared understanding: the Community. Discover new ways to bring people together to create ideas, plans, and execution strategies by Creating Communities that Generate ROI by Seth Kahan .
• Everyone talks about “networking,” but what do you do after the handshake? Learn how to not just be remembered but to create real trust using proven techniques you’ll be able to put to use right away.  This presentation will not only be entertaining and motivational, it will provide a well documented, repeatable, predictable process presented by Rob Jolles; sales expert and author of the #1 Business Bestseller, Customer Centered Selling.
• This much-requested session is in response to overwhelming feedback from PMA buyer members, and features four case studies created by researchers from the University of California, Davis – each detailing the success of locally grown supply chains. The studies will be followed by a discussion of the impact of the “triple bottom-line” of economical, social, and environmental in these successful supply chains.  This handout from the informative session gives you highlights discovered during the presenters research.